Right-to-work opponents claim bill is uneconomical

Opponents of “right-to-work” measures maintain there is no statistical evidence to show that the bills will stimulate the growth of Michigan’s economy.

Gordon Lafer, a labor research professor at University of Oregon, said Wednesday that claims right-to-work legislation will actually spur growth are dubious at best in an era where manufacturing jobs are more likely to move from Michigan to Mexico, Vietnam or China than they are to South Carolina or Alabama.

Lafer and others made the comments during a conference call arranged by Progress Michigan, which is working with organized labor.

One of the arguments behind right-to-work is that it can help employers control labor costs. Lafer said that might have been true in the ’60s, ’70s and even ’80s, but enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 changed the situation.

General Motors, for example, moved jobs from Oklahoma to Mexico after Oklahoma became a right-to-work state. Lafer said many supporters of right-to-work legislation have masked their true intentions behind the pro-growth rhetoric.

Supporters of right-to-work legislation maintain that the legislation would give individualemployees the right to decide whether they wanted to join a union and pay union dues. It would make the state more attractive to business, supporters claim.

“It is important to note these benefits, because while promoting free association and individual liberty sound noble, the use of such concepts to advance RTW legislation belies a less lofty motive: to undermine the economic and political power of wage-earners,” University of Michigan economist Rolland Zullosaid.

“As the financiers of the RTW program are well-aware, when workers act collectively they gain power at work and in society. In states that have passed RTW legislation, the wages and benefits of all workers, union and non-union, are lower than national averages,” he said.

One reason is that the gains by unionized workers spill into the non-union sectors through the so-called “threat effect.” In the presence of a strong regional union movement, employers with a non-union workforce willraise wages and benefits to discourage employees from unionizing.

Zullo said he push for right-to-work legislation in Michigan is being driven by some Republicans eager to retaliate against unions for their relative success during in the November elections.

“Perhaps what’s going on is retribution from the election. Right-to-work laws are unfriendly to labor unions,” Zullo said.

The motives of some legislators are troubling, said Jeff Breslin, a registered nurse at Sparrow Hospital and president of the 11,000-member Michigan Nurses Association. The union represents both private- and public-sector nurses.

“What’s especially disturbing is that the so-called right-to-work push is coming from a number of legislators who are acting out of anger toward unions rather than what’s best for Michigan,” Breslin said.

“One legislator told us flat out that he will vote yes on RTW strictly because the labor community supported his opponent. Michigan’s working families deserve better than to be punished by leaders using their power to get revenge,” Breslin said.

“Our state is in need of real, meaningful economic stimulation,” said Jim Mesich, a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 876 in Madison Heights and a Kroger employee.

“If big business is allowed to continue its manipulation of our legislative process, our government will continue to take money out of the pockets of our hard-working citizenry in the name of economic recovery, and right-to-work legislation will be the vehicle to take everyone to the ranks of the working poor,” Mesich said.